Gemma Atkinson

Gemma crossing the city.

A little story I wrote to accompany this one: Emotional Detachment

Gem walked on, heading for the ocean to take a swim. For her, it was just something to do to relieve the boredom, the emptiness of her days and nights now. She tried not to ponder on her recent past. From the day she accidentally opened that vial of experimental growth hormones until now, she saw only her life as a blur. A disaster from which she could not escape now. She used to be a top genetic researcher in her field. She enjoyed her job, her life, her career, her...everything. Now it was all like a lost dream, and her present life a nightmare that forced it's way in and replaced it. Now, she tried not to think about it. About the present life she had...the present life she loathed. Gem was all too aware of what each footstep she took meant for the residents of the human race and every other living thing on the planet roughly three kilometers below where her feet met the surface with unimaginable weight and force. She tried hard to divert her thoughts elsewhere...to anywhere else but the point of contact below. Gem had given up on trying to avoid the inevitable. Every footstep meant that hundreds if not thousands of lives were ended when she stepped down on the cities, towns, farms, roads, all the structures build and inhabited by man. It was no use to try to avoid them. No matter which way she turned, no matter which path she chose, someone was in the way. And someone inevitable got stepped on and compressed into the earths surface without even a chance of survival. So Gem walked on, straight through the heart of the city. She stepped into the lake near the shoreline and paused, aware that her feet had displaced massive amounts of water that were now racing to the shores to crash into the land and wipe out even more people and structures. But no different to the city blocks of houses, stores, strip malls, not to mention countless vehicles that were all crushed beyond recognition as they were compressed underneath her massive feet. As she walked on, her deep footprints revealed only the crushed remains of what had been thriving spots of humanity, now just lifeless holes left by her feet. The usual display of the fighter jets and attack helicopters used to amuse her, but she had learned that their weaponry only bounced harmlessly off her. Whatever had ultimately transformed her had also made her impervious to harm. This was more of a display now than any serious attempt to stop her. Gem had wondered sometimes why no one had used nuclear weapons on her yet, but she concluded that the death toll and damage from a thermo-nuclear detonation would probably kill and destroy more of humanity than even she was causing. In a way Gem almost welcomed such an act. Put me out of my misery, she sometimes pondered. Possibly atonement for all the death and destruction she was responsible for. Gem saw the missiles leave the jets and strike her body and face. And as usual, no effect. They didn't even tickle. Gem shrugged her shoulders, took a swat at the planes with her hand, instantly smashing them into almost a metal mist of pieces, and took another step towards the ocean. Almost there, she thought to her self. Gem walked on.......